If you haven't figured it out, we're in China, people. Get with the times.

Ok, first off, we apologize for the infrequent blogs. We are in China. Internet is a scarcer commodity here. We have some access at our hostel, but its a little questionable, so no photos.

Let's get you up to speed. We flew into Beijing on Sept 15. It was nice. We ate food. We saw old Chinese stuff. We walked along a pretty good wall (some people claim that it's great, but we would like to inspect more walls before we give it "great" status) for10 km. Jason was sick in New Zealand, then Corinne got sick in China (twice!), then Jason got sick in China. But the official prediction is that tomorrow will be the first day in nearly a month that we are both healthy.

Corinne thinks that Chinese squaters are the best thing ever. Really, think about it. You don't have to worry about what you sit on because there is no sitting. I find it quite relaxing! Jason pooped on a train! It was tiring.

There is a massive holiday in China right now. Imagine 1.3 billion people on vacation. Travel is difficult, to say the least. We had to cut our Beijing trip a bit short to get a train to Chengdu. Our train ride was 33 hours long. It was nice! Seriously. Squatters and trains are awesome!

So now we're in Chengdu, in the Sichuan province. We were going to try to go to try to go to Tibet, but it was too expensive and too controlled. A bad combination. Now we chill in Chengdu.

We are staying at an awesome hostel called Sim's Cozy Guesthouse. They just got two PUPPIES two days ago!! Corinne likes puppies!

Actually she won't leave them alone. Now the puppy follows her around. But I told her that he follows a mop around, so it wasn't much of a compliment.

Corinne thinks that Jason is just jealous because the puppy doesn't follow him around.

Harumph.

Let us tell you about yesterday! It was lovely! We went to a public park in the city. Tons of Chinese people were there with their families playing games, drinking tea, dancing, etc. It was a very cool atmosphere to be in. We decided to sit down in one of the "teahouses" for awhile. Since, Jason was a bit sick, and not in the mood for a million people, sitting was a good option. So was getting a massage! Logically, so was getting the wax scraped out of our ears! That was an experience.... we have some lovely (and some gruesome) photos to prove it, but since no photos today, you'll just have to take our word. We saw about 30 Chinese ladies (and two men) doing a strange line dance in the park. Corinne joined them. Jason took photos. Another nice time. Then we went to a food market. There is some huge food festival happening. There was some wierd food. For example, we saw a bowl of live scorpions just waiting to be skewered and fried and eaten. Other 'highlights' include, beetles, starfish, millipede lookin' thing, giant scorpions, and tenticles from some (formerly) sea-dwelling beast. We opted for that latter. So, sea-beast on a stick it was. Spicy!

Now, we're having a down day and just reading and relaxing and playing with puppies and making sure that Jason is better for tomorrow. Tomorrow we plan to try to take a bus to a town to take a bus to a town that seems nice. It's a quaint little village by chinese standards. We'll spend the night and be back here for the night after.

There. We have blogged. Please still be our friends even though we don't blog very often.

Have a nice day!

-Jason and corinne

Quote of the Day

"are there any tenticles in my moustache?"
-says Jason after eating something fishy on a stick at a food market in Chengdu

But where oh where can we get chinese food??

CHINA!

Mmmm, dumplings!

Appetizing eh?

Chicken feet?

Blueberry Pringles are not as good as they appear.

Of course, Jason had no problem liking the beer in China!

Our Tibetan feast!

Stay tuned for more China kung-fu action!

What should we have for dinner tonight?

So, we were sitting in Christchurch contemplating our next move. (Jason's not actually dead by the way... most of him washed up the next morning, still alive.)

We've been buying food at the supermarket to save money, and then cooking it at our hostel. we're getting a little bored of our food options. Pasta and sauce? Never again!

There are a number of great little restaraunts in Christchurch. Lots of Thai, Indian, and western foods.

But we decided that we are in the mood for chinese food...

South Island road trip

So, we left Christchurch on a largeish road trip that spanned most of the southern south Island. we picked up our friend Kevin, and away we went. we didn't even make it out of the city before we had to make a pit-stop. Imagine corinne's excitment to find a cookie factory on the highway. Oh wait.... you don't have to imagine. Just look!




Then, we went to Mount Cook, the highest peak in NZ. It was raining and we could barely see the bottom let alone the top. Needless to say, we have no photos. Then we went to Queenstown and partied like savage animals! Actually Corinne and Kevin watched Jason have one beer while we watched half of an all-blacks rugby game.

Then we hit the road yet again. We saw the lovely Doubtful Sound. This was taken along the bus trip to the boat trip.

Pretty nice, I guess.

Where does the poop go?

Here are some nice waterfalls...right?

Jason and Kevin obviously enjoyed the boat ride.

Next, we went to an area on the south-east corner of NZ called the Catlins. It was awesome. We found a really nice beach house and had it pretty much to ourselves. The shower was so good that we decided to stay for four nights.

This is our beach house from the front.

This was our view from the back.

on the beach...

There was some goof surfing, but it was the off-season (and damned cold) so there was no surfing lessons or rentals.

This is at the petrified forest, one of the oldest such places on the Earth. The petrified tree that Jason was inspecting dates from when New Zealand was attached to all the other continents.

Look! Forest Penguins! Who knew that penguins lived in the forest. These are actually yellow-eyed penguins, the rarest pengiuns in the world! We could only see them twice a day, morning and late afternoon when the enter the water to fish for the day, and when they come back home.

Another Penguin... we couldn't get close or else the penguins would not come out.

So, on our way back from looking at the pengiuns one day, we came across a fat blob of a sea lion sitting on the beach. "Oh, what a cute little seal", we thought. We were wrong. Next time we'll think, "Oh God! A savage flesh eating beast of the sea! Run for your lives!" Sea Lions can flop along at surprisingly high speeds.

This is it chasing Corinne.

This was the last photo Jason ever took. God rest his soul. He's sea lion food now.